


Saying the Unsaid

by iwasanartist



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Closure, Coming Out, First Kiss, Ghosts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 07:22:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21249587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwasanartist/pseuds/iwasanartist
Summary: "I'm not fucking Pennywise!" Eddie said before quickly following it up.. "I'm also not Pennywise, because yeah, I heard it as soon as I said it."





	Saying the Unsaid

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cyren2132](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyren2132/gifts).

Richie took a drink and set his tumbler down on the nightstand with a thud before turning back to his laptop, fingers flying over the keys, just trying to get words down. Any words. All the words. Enough words that at least some of them could coalesce into a joke or a punchline or a story.

It wouldn’t be good for tomorrow’s show, but Richie had been trying to incorporate his own material into the ghost-written lines he threw into the world four nights a week. He started small, trying to draw on his own experiences without giving too much of himself away. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t, but all he could do was keep typing.

“You can’t say that.”

Richie kept going, determined not to let the little voices of doubt and fear hold court in his head.

“No, dude. It’s 2018, you really can’t say that.”

A hand dropped onto the lid of his laptop, closing it halfway to his fingers.

“WHOA!” Richie about jumped out of his skin, but it was nothing compared to following the hand up the wrist and the arm to Eddie’s face.

“Hey buddy.”

“Oh, fuck no!” The bedding went flying and Richie was on his feet in an instant, scrabbling for anything he could get his hands on. He ended up across the room, his phone held out in one hand like a shield and a fire poker in the other.

“Easy, Ri-”

“Uh-uh, listen here fucko, we killed you twice already and we’ll damn sure do it again if we have to!”

“What?” Eddie’s eyes went wide. “OH! You think I’m It? I’m not It!”

“Yeah, fucking right! Stop looking like my friend!” Richie’s thumb flew over his phone, past the lock screen, into his contacts and straight to the B’s. “I said-”

“I’m not the clown! If I were don’t you think I’d be all _‘BLARGH!!_’” Eddie waved his hands in the air and shook his head back and forth, letting his chin and tongue waggle “by now?”

Richie’s thumb hovered over Bev’s name. 

“If…if you’re not Pennywise, what are you?”

Eddie shrugged his shoulders.

“A hallucination? A ghost? A dream? I don’t know man. But I’m not going to bite.”

“If you’re a ghost, why are you popping up now in my hotel room?”

“Maybe I need closure.”

“And if this is a dream?”

“Maybe _you_ need closure.”

There was a certain sense to it, and before Richie had even processed what the rest of his body was doing, he’d laid down the fire poker and eased back to bed, slipping under the covers and leaning against the headboard. He stared at the dark TV. He could see his general shape in the screen’s reflection and the lump next to him could have been Eddie.

For a moment, they sat in silence. There were about a thousand questions Richie wanted to ask but the words all jammed somewhere between his brain and mouth.

“Saw your wife,” he finally said.

“Yeah? How is she?”

“Well, we were there to tell her you were gone, so not great. But, you know, I think she actually took it kind of okay. I mean, all the food in the house disappeared in a whirlwind and there probably wasn’t a bodega or Duane Reade safe from Myra Dick in a 30-block radius but-”

“Hey!”

“Sorry. I think she’ll be okay.”

“Good. That’s good.”

Richie watched from the corner of his eye as Eddie stared at his hands, ran his fingers together and paused over the spot where his wedding band should have been. They’d given it back to Myra. When Ben and Mike had pulled Richie away, it was the one thing that came with him, sliding off Eddie’s finger as Richie tried to hold on. He didn’t know how long he’d held it clenched in his fist before realizing it was there, leaving a circle indentation on his palm where a coke bottle scar had been before.

Richie tried to speak, but it took a few shuddering breaths before any more words would squeak out of his mouth.

“I’m really sorry,” he said.

“About Myra? Don’t worry about it. She’s a big girl; she’s not going to break because a Loser made a fat joke alone in his Vegas hotel room.”

There was a part of Richie that wanted to latch onto “big girl,” make a trashy comment and return to safer territory, and he could tell there was a part of Eddie that expected it.

“No,” he said instead. “I…” his voice caught in his throat, stuck behind a boulder the size of Plymouth Rock. He pushed forward. “I’m sorry I left you.”

Eddie looked up at him, his gaze soft and sympathetic.

“I was gone before the house even started to come down Richie.”

“But before that, when everyone was belittling Pennywise to that weird baby thing. I shouldn’t have left you there. You shouldn’t…you shouldn’t have died alone.”

Died. It was the first time he’d actually said it, opting instead for euphemisms or silence as he tried to hang on to the belief that Eddie had still been alive. That something could have been done. It was the first time he acknowledged that the tiny part deep in the pit of his stomach that wanted to blame the others for not helping him save Eddie was full of shit.

“I wasn’t alone” Eddie said. “Not really. You guys were all there, fighting for me. For the kids of Derry. Which, let’s be real, is more than I can say for myself.”

“Oh, come on, man.”

“No, really. You can buck me up all you want. Doesn’t change the fact that if it weren’t for Bill, you’d be dead while I cowered in a corner like a coward.”

“Dude. If you’re the standard for pussies, I wish I met it. Seriously.”

Eddie rolled his eyes.

“Right, because I pulled a knife out of my face and married a fat person. Real hero.”

“Because you’re you! You’ve always been you! You may be scared shitless of things that can kill you, but being yourself? You never wavered, and that’s something I wish…”

Richie trailed off, and just when the silence was starting to get overbearing, Eddie spoke.

“You can say it, you know.”

“Say what?”

Eddie frowned at him.

“Uh…that you want to date guys? Suck on a cock? F-”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Richie interrupted. “That’s not…I don’t…I’m not!”

“OH, beep beep Richie,” Eddie said, slowly drawing each word out. “You wanna be yourself, stop lying to yourself. And all of us.”

There was something different in Eddie’s voice. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t disappointed. Maybe a little exasperated.

“Dude, what are you worried about?” he continued.

“I didn’t make friends after Derry!” Richie said. “Not real ones. I didn’t make friends, and I forgot about the ones I already had, and now we’re back and I don’t want to lose everything again.”

Eddie looked away before turning to back to Richie.

“Don’t be such a pussy about it,” he said. “Losers always stick together in the end.”

Richie swallowed. Jesus shit fuck Christ, if ever there was ever a time it should be easy. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and exhaled it all in three words. “I’m gay, Eds.”

“Yeah, no shit, man,” Eddie said, his tone carrying the levity of a youth not spent on the run from demonic alien clowns. “I mean, you spent $1,200 just to get inside me for a night.”

“What?!”

Eddie snorted and nodded his head toward the phone and a leather welcome folder stamped with The Historic Edwards Hotel.

“Well that’s a pretty big fucking stretch.”

“Dude! There’s a fireplace in your room! The hell do you need a fireplace for? And it’s 10 miles from your venue, when there was a Marriott a block and a half away!”

“I could burn stuff! And they’re big fucking city blocks! Full of people!” Richie yelled at him like they were kids again, arguing about nothing, swinging in a hammock and tossing Your Mom jokes left, right and center. “This way I can drive straight into the garage and walk right through the fucking door! Plus, it was a _Marriott_!”

Eddie was openly laughing at him, and it was quite possibly the single most beautiful thing Richie had ever seen.

“_City blocks_,” Eddie mocked. “Are you fucking with me with that bullshit?”

“Yeah,” Richie says with a grin that, despite everything of the last few seconds, he didn’t quite feel. “Yeah, I wish.” The last words were quiet, almost to himself. But not quiet enough.

“What?”

Eddie was staring at him, and he was perfect. His face was clear at first but then it started to blur, and the rest of the room followed suit. Well shit, was this how an aneurysm started? Was sudden macular degeneration a thing? Eddie would know, and Richie was about to ask when he blinked and the world cleared as hot tears ran down his face. Eddie was still staring at him. Waiting for an explanation.

“I love you,” Richie said. Maybe he said it; the words sounded like pops in his ears, straining to get past the lump in his throat. He coughed, wiped a hand across his face and tried again. “I love you.” The words were soft but real and saying them lifted more weight from his heart than anything else he’d said in the past year. “I think I always did, and I’m sorry I never told you…I never told you any of it before.”

Eddie smiled a half smile before looking down at his hands, dropping his palm over Richie’s wrist and giving a squeeze. He felt so real.

“I didn’t make it easy,” he said. “And I probably would have been a little shit if you had.”  
  
Richie crinkled his brow.

“You some kind of secret bigot?”

Eddie looked up sharply. There was something vaguely horrified in his expression.

“What? No! Just a hypochondriac kid in the 80s with an encyclopedic knowledge of all the world’s ills. I’d tell myself I was just trying to look out for you, but you know I’d be a jerk about it. Even if I didn’t mean to be.”

“Huh. You’d look out for me?”

“Yeah, man. No question.”

They lapsed into a silence, and Richie really thought he should say something. Anything, before somehow the universe decided they were done and Eddie disappeared.

“So…”

“So, like have you ever done any…you know, with any…you know?”

“Wow, could you be a little more vague there, Eddie?”

“Sorry. I meant to say ‘Have you ever fucked a dude?’ Better?”

“You know what, let’s go back to being vague.”

“So, I’ll take that as a no.”

“You know, motherfucker what do you want from me? I like literally just said it for the first time two seconds ago, you think I was going around asking for it before?”

Eddie was laughing again. Doubled over, wheezing and slapping his hand against the sheets. When he started to cough, Richie pounded on his back like everything was normal.

“You all right, man?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said between breaths. “Yeah, it’s just…_motherfucker_. I never know if you’re generically cursing at me or-”

“Or if I’m tailoring my insults to this weird Oedipal thing you’ve got going on?”

“That, yeah.” Eddie smiled again and wiped his eyes on the sheets.

“Not worried about pink eye or something?” Richie asked.

“Nah. Not anymore.”

Right. Not anymore, because it’s hard to catch pink eye from hotel sheets when you’re dead. The lump was back. Richie swallowed, but it refused to dislodge, dissolve or do anything right by him. Its pressure was constant and familiar. Sometimes he could pretend like it wasn’t there, blocking part of his voice from the world, but it never really went away. He kind of thought it would have now.

Eddie shifted with a bounce, turning to face Richie.

“Hey, close your eyes.”

“What? Why?”

“Just do it, fucker.”

Richie stared at Eddie, unblinking, the lump in his throat still unmoving, and his heart racing.

“God, you still think I’m going to turn into the clown, don’t you?!”

“Well, Christ, now I do! Fuck, man!”

“I’m not fucking Pennywise!” Eddie said before quickly following it up. “I’m also not Pennywise, because yeah, I heard it as soon as I said it.”

Richie laughed. He laughed so hard his glasses slid down his nose and half off his face, dangling from one ear. And for the first time in he couldn’t remember how long, it felt real. He was just winding down when Eddie spoke so quietly that he almost missed it.

“Hey, Rich.” Eddie raised a hand and plucked at Richie’s glasses until they fell the rest of the way off. A finger lingered around the curve of his ear. Richie leaned his cheek into Eddie’s palm and didn’t fight it as Eddie turned his face toward his.

Eddie leaned in. Even without his glasses, from this distance Richie could make out every freckle, mole and line on his face. He could see every lash as Eddie’s eyes closed.

His eyes were open when Eddie kissed him. Eddie’s lips were soft pressing against his. It shouldn’t have been a surprise; he probably had a hundred different lip balms, moisturizers and sunscreens in his medicine cabinet. Because that was Eddie. This was Eddie, and when he opened his mouth just enough to pull Richie’s top lip between his, Richie’s eyes finally fluttered closed.

It was an amazing kiss. He wasn’t even getting any tongue action out of it, but Richie still couldn’t shake the feeling that this was the sort of first kiss people wrote songs about. Songs and poetry and cheesy rom-coms, and he never wanted it to end.

But it had to.

Eddie backed off slowly enough that Richie could still feel his breath hot against in his face.

“Just in case you needed a boost over the wall,” he whispered. The hand at Richie’s cheek moved to his neck before landing at his shoulder with a gentle pat. Richie laid his hand over Eddie’s, grasped for him as he pulled away, flipping his wrist to catch Eddie’s hand properly, palm to palm, fingers sliding over each other as Eddie pulled back. Richie curled his fingertips in a last ditch effort to hold on, but it wasn’t enough.

When he opened his eyes, Eddie was gone. Like nothing had happened. Except Richie could still feel Eddie’s lips on his. His arm was even still half raised, hand outstretched, palm up. Richie dropped his hand, and it landed not with a soft thump onto the sheets but with a thud onto the hard plastic case of his phone. He picked it up and turned it over. Ben, Bev and Bill still stared at him. Before he even had time to think about it, his thumb landed on Bill’s name.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Bill. How’s it going?”

“Richie? It’s 3 in the morning.”

Richie’s eyes turned to the clock, and sure enough 12:02 a.m. stared back at him in accusatory green.

“Aw, fuck, Bill I’m sorry man. I didn’t even think about the time or time zones...”

“No problem,” Bill said around a yawn. “What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing much. I just, uh…I just saw Eddie.”

“Eddie?” Richie could practically hear Bill’s brow furrowing and the rustle of sheets as he bolted upright. “You mean like the c-clown?! W-Was it P…P-Pennywise?!”

“What? God, no. Fuck. No, that’d be horrifying. I mean, I thought maybe it was underneath. But then….it wasn’t. It was just Eddie, and it was nice. He was nice…” Richie could hear himself rambling, but he couldn’t seem to redirect his mouth to his point and settled for tapering off into silence.

“Have you been drinking, Richie?” Bill asked. His voice was full of concern that most people in his non-Loser circle wouldn’t have bothered with, and Richie couldn’t help but love him just a little for it. And yeah, being halfway to shitfaced would have explained a lot. But as his eyes landed on his tumbler, Richie frowned. The glass was bone dry, the seal on his bourbon unbroken.

“N…no. That’s weird, isn’t it? I guess maybe it was just a dream. Or…I don’t know…” There was a part of him that didn’t think Bill would believe him if he said he’d just made out a little bit with the reality-bending ghost of his best friend, which was ridiculous, because they iced a killer clown from outer space together twice now, so the list of things Bill wouldn’t believe was probably crazy stupid small, but still. He just couldn’t get the words out.

“Richie, are you okay, man?”

“Yeah. Yeah,” Richie said, running a hand across his face. “I just, um…”

_Don’t be such a pussy about it. Losers always stick together in the end._

Richie took a deep breath. He exhaled, and the ever present lump that he’d been living with for years finally went with it.

“Bill, I need to tell you something.”


End file.
